by Fiona Leitch
‘What a pleasant image that conjures up,’ said Nathan. I snorted. Mancuso looked over at me, then back to Nathan.
‘I think you need to spend less time cooking up theories with your little girlfriend here and either find the evidence that says this was a murder or admit that it was an accident. I think that if you don’t get your ass in gear I’ll be reporting you to the authorities!’ He suddenly turned to me again. ‘Can you hear me there okay? Did you get all that?’
‘I’m just doing my job…’ I said, holding up my hands in defence. Germaine growled at him.
‘Can it!’ he growled back, and stormed off. Nathan grinned at me.
‘He’s not very happy, is he?’ I said, sitting opposite him.
‘Nope. To be fair, he probably does feel bad about carrying on with the shoot so soon, but without the insurance payout he doesn’t have any other option.’ Nathan absentmindedly stroked Germaine’s head as she sat and gazed up at him adoringly. I supposed she was only copying what she’d seen me do…
‘I don’t know about that,’ I said, gesturing around us. ‘Look. No one looks terribly upset, do they? I’m not saying they don’t care, but movie people just seem to be obsessed with the whole the-show-must-go-on thing.’
‘Maybe…’ Nathan mused. ‘Anyway, where are we at now?’
‘We know it was pufferfish toxin. But it wasn’t the pufferfish.’
‘So we know it wasn’t an accident, no matter how much Mancuso wishes it. We also know it wasn’t the cupcakes, because if it had been then Kimi would have been ill the other night.’
‘And dead now. Yeah. So we have to find what else everyone but Kimi and Faith ate.’ I shook my head. ‘Kimi ate everything but the chicken. Faith ate everything but the tofu. Which doesn’t help us much.’
‘Not really, no.’
‘The poison – the tetrodotoxin – how easy is it to get hold of?’ I asked. ‘You can’t nip into Boots and buy it, can you? Where would they have got it from?’
‘I’ve got DS Turner looking into that,’ said Nathan. ‘There can’t be many places you can get it from. I’m surprised you can get it at all. What about the victim? Any gossip about grudges against him, or overheard arguments? Anything that could be a motive?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ve been chatting with a few people this morning while I’ve been serving them, and no one had a bad word to say about him. But then they might just not want to speak ill of the dead. Who knows?’
‘Okay. Your other theory – about the curse, all the daft pranks and accidents being window dressing for this one big ‘accident’ – maybe we should look into that,’ said Nathan. I nodded.
‘Yeah. I mean, we know that Zack messed up Faith’s door, and Aiko was the one who let Kimi’s dog out, but that still leaves the annoying little pranks like the generator being overloaded and the bulbs smashing, and of course the steps to the food truck being tampered with…’
‘I might be able to help you with that.’ We looked up and saw Lucy standing nearby with Gino, whose arm was in a sling.
‘Gino!’ I leapt up. ‘Why didn’t you say you were coming back?’
‘Thought I’d surprise you,’ he said, looking at me disapprovingly. ‘And I obviously have. There’s hardly any food out—’
Lucy shook her head, exasperated. ‘There’s loads; no one’s going to starve.’
‘What do you think you could help us with?’ asked Nathan. ‘Do you know who sabotaged the stairs and caused Gino to hurt himself?’
Gino and Lucy exchanged looks, then she nodded. ‘I think so…’
Lucy led us past the shoot’s shanty town of marquees and trailers to a quiet spot towards the back of the house. Here the set carpenters and painters were busy assembling props and bits of scenery. One of them, a heavy-set but good-looking man in his late twenties, was sanding down a fake sword like the one Zack had been carrying a few days previously.
He looked up and smiled at Lucy, but his smile faltered when he saw us and disappeared completely at the sight of Gino.
‘All right, Luce?’ he said cautiously, eyeing Gino with obvious dislike.
‘Not really, no,’ she said. ‘The steps at the back of the food truck… It’s just come to my attention that they were tampered with.’
‘Sawn through,’ Nathan added. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?’
‘No,’ he said, but his eyes betrayed him. He couldn’t stop himself casting a glance over towards the saw that lay propped up next to his tool box.
‘Really?’ Lucy folded her arms and stared at him. He shuffled around uncomfortably.
‘Of course not. I was right here, all the time.’
I sighed. ‘It’s quite romantic really, when you think about it,’ I said. Nathan looked at me, amazed.
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah! Fighting for the woman you love. Like something out of a movie.’ I looked at Lucy; I could see she'd caught on.
‘Like a romcom,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Falling for You or something.’ She snorted. ‘If a man did that for me – tried to get a rival out of the way…’
‘Hard to resist,’ she agreed.
The carpenter looked from me to Lucy to Nathan to Gino, like he was at a Wimbledon doubles match.
‘Well … but … all right,’ he admitted. ‘Yeah. I did it.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Nathan.
‘I sawed through the middle step so that when Gino stood on it, it would break.’ The carpenter looked down at his feet, mumbling, then looked up pleadingly at Lucy. ‘I only done it because you and him was flirting. I know what his type’s like, Luce. I weren’t losing you to someone like that.’
‘You did it because you love me, I suppose?’ asked Lucy.
‘Yeah, I did! I do! You know I do. I didn’t want to lose you.’
‘You idiot. You weren’t going to lose me. I wasn’t interested in Gino as anything other than a friend,’ she said, her expression softening slightly.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘In that case…’ The carpenter got down on one knee and smiled what he obviously thought was a winning smile. ‘Will you marry me, Lucy?’
Lucy smiled at him. ‘Will I marry you? After you got jealous and broke a man’s arm for me? When it could have been a lot worse than a broken arm?’
He smiled again. ‘Yeah.’
She snorted. ‘You’re a bloody psychopath. Of course I won’t marry you. And you’re fired.’
He stood up, surprised and angry. ‘What? But I— You can’t—’
‘Unless you want me to arrest you, I suggest you leave,’ said Nathan, inserting himself between the furious carpenter and Lucy, who was as cool as a cucumber. ‘On your bike, sunshine.’
The carpenter looked helplessly at Lucy, scowled at Nathan, then grabbed his toolbox and stormed off.
‘Oh my God, I love it when you talk like something out of The Bill,’ I said. Nathan laughed.
‘That show is responsible for my entire career,’ he said. He turned to Gino. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to press charges? He caused you a nasty accident, and it could have been even worse.’
Gino looked at Lucy, but she shook her head. ‘No,’ said Gino, ‘we’ll leave it. He’s a big enough loser as it is.’ And with that he took Lucy’s hand (with his non-broken arm) and they walked away.
‘Okay…’ said Nathan. ‘Note to self: never try to stop your girlfriend leaving by taking out the opposition.’
I laughed, but it wasn’t me leaving, was it?
Chapter Twenty-Five
We slowly strolled back towards the food truck, but we were waylaid en route by Daisy and Mum, who had just finished filming. Daisy chattered excitedly and even Mum had a glow about her, so they’d obviously enjoyed the experience far more than I had.
‘Are you done for the day?’ I asked. Daisy nodded.
‘I am but Nana isn’t,’ she said. ‘Nana’s got a p
roper part!’
‘What?’ I cried, turning to Mum. She smiled and looked very proud of herself. Some might even call it smug.
‘I’ve got a line and everything,’ she said. ‘They’re going to let me speak.’
‘They’ll bloody regret that,’ I muttered, and Nathan laughed.
‘Nice one, Shirley,’ he said. She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
‘Thank you, Nathan. You can come round for your tea again.’
We all went to the food truck – I thought I should probably make sure the hot buffet was still well stocked, and we were all getting hungry – but when I got there I could hear singing coming from inside the van.
Gino stopped mid-line – something about a big pizza pie – and poked his head out over the counter.
‘You decided to come back, then?’ he said, but in a good-natured way; he seemed to be in a better mood than he had been earlier.
‘Have I been made redundant?’ I asked. He smiled.
‘Sorry, I can’t sit at home doing nothing, even with my arm in a sling. You can help with the washing-up if you want…’
‘No, you’re all right,’ I said quickly, although I knew I would end up feeling bad and helping him anyway. ‘In that case, I want some food.’
We all helped ourselves, including Nathan, who was showing no inclination to leave, which was okay by me. Then we found a spare table and sat down. Daisy looked cold in her pretty costume, so I took off my coat and draped it over her shoulders. Mum said she was fine, although it was a bit chilly, but the temperature went up several degrees when Nathan unwound the scarf he was wearing and wrapped it round her neck. I felt myself go all warm inside at such a caring gesture. That’s because he’s a good son, I thought, and immediately went cold again.
‘So much for my theory about the pranks,’ I said, after we’d filled our bellies with cheesy pasta, Mum had gone to the Make-Up trailer, and Daisy had gone off with Jade to get changed, Germaine bounding after her. I could only imagine the look on the sour wardrobe mistress’s face when confronted with my hairy dog next to her precious costumes… ‘The only ones we haven’t got to the bottom of are the most minor ones, the lightbulbs being smashed and the generator fiddled with.’
‘And wasn’t the home owner complaining about someone being in his garden?’ asked Nathan.
‘That’s right. It looked like whoever smashed the light bulbs climbed out of the window.’
Nathan looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe we should go and have a look at that flowerbed…’
‘The footprints were here, and then there were some shards of broken glass here.’ I pointed at the flowerbed in David Morgan’s kitchen garden. Nathan frowned.
‘Are you sure?’ He carefully worked his way around the remaining seedlings and plants, careful not to do any more damage. ‘So whoever was in the flowerbed stood about here? And the window was shut, so they must have turned around after climbing out, reached up, and closed it?’ I nodded. He reached up to the window above him and frowned again. ‘Okay, I know I’m not the tallest man in the world, but look how hard it is for me to even reach the window frame. The window would have to be open at least halfway to leave a big enough gap to climb through, and I don’t think I could close it from out here. The ground’s lower this side of the window than it is inside, isn’t it?’
‘I did wonder about that at the time,’ I said.
‘What’s going on?’ David Morgan stood behind us, looking annoyed. His expression changed to one of wariness as Nathan turned round and he realised he was addressing a police officer and not just the nosey caterer. ‘Sorry, officer, I can’t remember your name. Can I help you with something?’
‘DCI Withers, sir. I was just following up on the trespassing issue you had here a few days ago. My associate here’ – ooh, I was his ‘associate’ now, was I? That sounded official – ’believed that there could be a link between that and the vandalism of film company property.’
‘Oh, right.’ Morgan really did look uncomfortable now. ‘Look, there’s enough going on here. I don’t want to add to it by making a big thing about this, annoyed as I was…’
‘It’s absolutely fine, sir,’ said Nathan. I could see he’d picked up on the house owner’s nervousness. ‘I was just saying to Ms Parker here that our theory doesn’t add up. The footprints were in the wrong place. Even if they were closer to the window, I still don’t really see how someone could reach up and shut the window from the outside.’
I looked down at Nathan’s feet. The prints in the soil were rather larger than those left by his smart leather shoes.
‘What size are your feet, DCI Withers?’ I asked. He looked down.
‘Size eight. Whoever left these prints had bigger feet than me.’ David Morgan’s gaze involuntarily travelled from Nathan’s feet to his own, and then up to my face. He looked surprised (and guilty) to see me staring at him. Every time, I thought. They give themselves away every time.
‘What size are you, Mr Morgan?’ I asked. He looked flustered.
‘Um…’
‘You know the other thing that occurred to me,’ I said, turning to Nathan. ‘I overheard the lighting guy say he’d set the lights up last thing, just before everyone left for the evening. So who would have had access to them overnight? Mr Morgan? Would any of the crew or anyone else connected with the shoot have been able to get into the house without you hearing them?’
Nathan looked at him, waiting for an answer. ‘Mr Morgan?’
David Morgan looked at him for a moment, then gave a kind of helpless but resigned groan.
‘Okay. I admit it. Those were my footprints; I put them there. There never was a trespasser.’
‘And the shards of glass?’
‘That was me too. Oh God, I’m sorry…’ We let him compose himself before continuing. ‘You haven’t met my wife yet, have you Ms Parker? She’s a difficult woman, which I have to admit is one of the things that attracted me to her.’ He smiled. ‘She doesn’t let anyone boss her around, not even me. Ha! Least of all me. When I told her we needed to find a way to make the house pay, she reluctantly agreed to hold weddings here. But the film shoot was the last straw.’
‘Your wife doesn’t like the film people being here?’ asked Nathan.
‘No, she doesn’t. I don’t either really, but we need the money. Anyway, she decided to show her displeasure by causing them a few problems – petty, I know, but … it made her feel better.’
‘She smashed the lightbulbs?’ I asked, and he nodded.
‘Yes. They’d been set up and just left there, overnight. She went in there and smashed them so they’d have to change all the bulbs before they started filming the next day. She thought it was funny, but to me it was obvious that it must have been us…’
‘So you planted the footprints and the glass to make it look like someone had broken in and out of the house?’
‘Yes.’ Morgan looked embarrassed. ‘I am very sorry.’
‘What about the generator?’ asked Nathan. He nodded.
‘I caught her fiddling about with it that day, pulling leads out of the circuit breaker and messing around with it, so I sent her off and plugged everything back in.’
‘But you overloaded it, and that’s when it went bang and scared Jeremy’s horse,’ I said.
‘Yes. I was so relieved that he hadn’t been thrown. And then that night, my wife was annoyed that they were having a party, because we hadn’t agreed to that, so she went back to the generator and turned it off. But I realised what she was doing and followed her, and I managed to turn it back on quite quickly.’
‘That’s when the lights went out,’ I said. ‘When I was clearing everything away, and you turned up…’ I looked at Nathan, remembering the way he’d stood in the doorway, wet and windswept, channelling Heathcliff as the lights had come back on.
‘When I heard that Jeremy Mayhew was dead, I was terrified that it had something to do with the lights going out – maybe he’d fallen in the dark – so wh
en you said it was pufferfish toxin I was relieved.’ He looked at us anxiously. ‘Will we get into trouble? I admit we were wrong, but…’
Nathan stared at him for a moment, making sure he felt guilty (I mean, he and his wife had damaged other people’s property) before shaking his head. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. As you said, the production company have enough to contend with at the moment, so I would be very surprised if they wanted to press charges against your wife.’ He looked serious. ‘However, if any more little accidents were to occur, I would not bet on them being quite so forgiving. Do I make myself understood?’
‘Yes. Crystal clear. Absolutely.’ Morgan reached out to shake Nathan’s hand, and then mine. ‘Thank you, thank you so much. I am so terribly sorry about all of this…’
‘Guv?’ Nathan’s detective sergeant, a bloke whom I was constantly running into during investigations but whose name I could never remember, loitered nearby. Nathan dismissed Morgan with a nod of the head, then turned to his junior officer. ‘Matt. Have you got something for me?’
Matt! I thought. Matt Turner. The one I’d spoken to on the phone when Jeremy had died.
Matt nodded at me. ‘All right, Jodie?’
‘All right, Matt?’ I said. Nathan rolled his eyes.
‘Oh good, we’re all all right,’ he said, with a touch of sarcasm. ‘What is it?’
‘I got all the stuff about tetrodotoxin you wanted.’
‘And you couldn’t tell me it over the phone?’
‘Well, you know, I just wanted to…’ His gaze swept over the house and the organised chaos of the shoot around us. Nathan shook his head, but he looked amused.
‘You wanted to have a nosey around the shoot. Fine.’ He waited. ‘So…? Tetrodotoxin?’
‘Oh, yeah, sorry.’ Matt took out his notebook. ‘Tetrodotoxin is not available to purchase in this country. It’s not used at all over here, but there has been research into using it as a painkiller for cancer patients in the States and in Japan. It’s also been used as an experimental treatment for lessening cravings and preventing relapses in heroin addicts going through withdrawal, again mostly in the States and Japan, although there are also two private addiction clinics in Switzerland and one in Canada where it’s occasionally prescribed.’
